Il est difficile de ne pas concevoir l’utopie du côté de la rupture : division spatiale originelle, tension temporelle, désaccord critique. Pourtant les théories et attaques des anti-utopistes voient dans l’utopie un monde illusoire voire inutile, clos, signant la fin des temps et potentiellement dangereux pour l’humanité. Et si l’utopie n’était pas le programme de la société meilleure à réaliser, mais bien au contraire une pratique transgressive, une apparition de discontinuité dans notre « ici et maintenant », un excès qui vient doubler le réel plutôt qu’un possible à réaliser dans le futur ?Iain M. Banks est un auteur de science-fiction contemporain original et audacieux, qui, conscient des dangers inhérents à l’utopie, a su jouer avec ces limites pour proposer une société utopique totalement inédite : cette utopie s’appelle la Culture. Comment réinvestir singulièrement l’utopie ? Comment la science-fiction – et plus précisément le genre du space-opéra – permet-elle de mettre en scène des problématiques politiques dignes d’un intérêt philosophique ?Iain M. Banks imagine une utopie tout entière tournée vers la rencontre, la proximité, la nouveauté. Subvertissant les traditions utopique et science-fictionnelle, le Cycle de la Culture est traversé par l’altérité et le conflit. Ces deux caractéristiques sont les fils directeurs de cette thèse qui vise à reconceptualiser l’utopie dans une perspective philosophique, politique et littéraire, en travaillant les représentations du discours utopique au sein du laboratoire science fictionnel.Ce discours prend ici trois formes : dystopie, hétérotopie, (e)utopie. Ensemble, elles dessinent une « culture utopique radicale ». / It is difficult not to conceive utopia as a rupture: through original spatial division, temporal tension, critical discordance. Yet, theories and attacks from anti-utopians consider utopia as an illusory world, even useless, enclosed, marking the end of times and potentially dangerous for humanity. What if utopia was not the programme of a better society to realize,but instead a transgressive practice, an apparition of discontinuity in our « now and here », an excess which overtakes reality rather than a possible that has yet to be realized in the future? Iain M. Banks is a contemporary, original and audacious science-fiction author, who,aware of the inherent dangers of utopia, has known how to challenge these limits in order to provide a completely unique utopian society: this utopia is called the Culture. How to critically reinvest utopia? How can science fiction – and more precisely the genre of space-opera – depict political issues, worthy of philosophical enquiry? Iain M. Banks imagines a space for utopia, entirely oriented towards encounter,proximity, and novelty. Subverting science-fictional and utopian traditions, notions of alterity and conflict span the Culture Cycle. These two characteristics are the guiding principles of this dissertation, which aims at reconceptualizing utopia through a philosophical, political and literary perspective, by way of analysing the representations of utopian discourses within the science-fictional laboratory. These discourses take three shapes: dystopia, heterotopia, (e)utopia. Together, they outline a “radical utopian culture”.

This dissertation documents how a series of cynical 1940s Hollywood films set in historical eras served as a forum for Hollywood to reconcile the complex relationship between America and its European past. While these films are rarely discussed in the ongoing discourse surrounding film noir, this study posits that they function as “noirs of the past” by transposing the pessimism and trauma surrounding World War II to the distant American and European past in a narrative and stylistic manner consistent with film noir. Film noir is a branching term to describe a group of 1940s and 50s Hollywood crime melodramas that are known for their cynical worldviews and femme fatales. Produced during the war and postwar era, film noirs primarily depict squalid urban settings that underscore the broken promise that is the American Dream. However, this project maintains that many of these noirs also critique American society through historical settings that trace present-day class and gender problems back to the European aristocracy and its excesses. Noirs of the past are universally ignored in debates surrounding historical films because they appear at first blush to have little interest in depicting historical events in a precise manner. This is for good reason: they openly resist historical accuracy by employing devices that highlight their artificiality. The noir of the past’s lack of historical verisimilitude further extends to character types, dialogue, costumes, and aesthetics that feel closer in spirit to the gloomy shadows of contemporary-set film noirs than the glossy and monumental historical films of the 1940s. Through their overlap of historical and contemporary 1940s signifiers, “noirs of the past” construct a sense of location and time that borrows from both the past and present to demonstrate the cyclical nature of events and figures across history.

The present dissertation deals with self-representation in a corpus consisting of narrative texts about the exile from Chile, Uruguay and Argentina, that reached Sweden during the 1970s and 1980s. The first part of the analysis focuses on the representation of discursive borders that enclose identity in exile in categories based on gender and ethnicity. The second part focuses on exile subjectivity as situated in a discursive framework of space and time, where the centre of attention is on how the legacies of memories from the political oppression during the dictatorship in the exile’s past inhibit the inclusion of these memories in a pedagogical discourse of the self. The corpus of narrative texts that are analysed consists of novels and short stories in Spanish. Latin American exile in Sweden is a central theme and can therefore be considered as part of the historical contextual framework that surrounds the discourse of Latin American exile identity in Sweden. The analysis is not focused on the authors’ individual experiences of exile, since a point of departure in the dissertation is an immanency between the author’s biography and the narrative text. The object of study is the identity as constructed in the text itself against the backdrop of Latin American exile and immigration in Sweden. The theoretical framework applied mostly derives from poststructural and postcolonial criticism and concerns identity as relational between self and other, as well as culturally and discursively constructed. The analysis of the corpus texts is based on a conception of gender identity as relational and intersectional with identities connected to ethnicity and social class. It also takes as a starting point the assumption that the notion of exile identity is rendered from a male norm, based on the traditional association between national politics and male rationality. Another point of departure is a notion of permeability between exile and immigrant identity, of which the former is conceived as linked to discourses of political rationality and the latter to those of corporality and materiality. The analysis focuses on the way both exile and immigrant identities are represented as constituent parts of exile self in narratives. For the reading of texts that illustrate exile subjectivity as a dislocation in space and time, the theoretical framework is based on Foucault’s notions of heterochronia and heterotopia. The analysis aims to highlight the representation of heterochronic divisions in the texts, between memories of the past and the present in exile. This representation departs from the notion of modern subjectivity as a pedagogical discourse of the self that is rendered as a narrative of the proper life. In some texts, this pedagogy of the self is represented as interrupted in exile by the suppression of memories of political oppression during the dictatorships in the exiles’ countries of origin, such as those of imprisonment, torture and violence. The analysis also focuses on the representation of strategies the individual employs to accomplish the performance of a coherent self in exile.

Globalization and the advancement of technology have made the world smaller. Boundaries that define nations and nationalities have blurred and the resulting sense of displacement has undermined assumptions of identity and conversely made the search for identity more urgent. This thesis investigates the dialogue between the contemporary arts and architecture through the lens of the Filipino culture as a way to recapture and bring to the surface the contemporary identity of Filipinos and the Philippines. It proposes an understanding of history, geography and culture as a complex floating archipelago out of which our identity as individuals and nations emerge. It suggests that the events of history and the characteristics of geography are the grounds out of which art, myths and legends continue to be formed and sustain their relevance. Today, these compelling narratives emerge through the works of contemporary artists. They help us view and understand our flaws, struggles, triumphs, and future as a society in a way that speaks of our culture and time. Architecture, as a container and stage for culture must be sensitive to this artistic contemporaneity if it is to be indexical to our time. The Philippines, as a culture of hybrid and regional identities, has long struggled to make sense of the Contemporary in a largely Traditional society. The thesis proposes a new Centre for Contemporary Arts in Manila to bring the diverse artistic activities of the country into focus. It intervenes at interface between the Traditional and the Contemporary, which bridges the gap between the two, thus heralding a Cultural Renaissance and help generate a sense of contemporary nationalism.

The thesis aims to produce a reconsideration of the queer spaces articulated in 1980s and 1990s literary criticism through the corporealising theory of gender and sexuality in the recent development of Australian material feminism and Rita Felski‟s idea of transient time. It particularly focuses on interpretations of transgender characters in critical readings of Renaissance drama and contemporary fiction. The academic fields investigated are thus late twentieth-century Renaissance criticism of gender and sexuality, late twentieth-century queer interpretations of transgenderism and transgender characters in contemporary literature, contemporary transgender studies and material feminist theory. Chapter 1 introduces a queer space articulated by discourses of gender and sexuality in 1980s and 1990s criticism of Renaissance drama. It concludes that the historical methodology of the critics is flawed and that the idea of Renaissance queerness is built as a contrast to late twentieth-century queerness. Chapter 2 is a reconsideration of the Renaissance anatomical sources used by the canonical critics introduced in the previous chapter. It establishes that the queer idea of sex and gender developed through these should rather be read in light of the more corporeal Renaissance discourse of monstrosity. Chapter 3 reconsiders the transgender characters in Shakespeare‟s Twelfth Night and As You Like It and introduces a reading of Middleton and Dekker‟s The Roaring Girl from a point of view that introduces Renaissance sexual monstrosity as a formation of corporealised though flexible gender subjectivity. Chapter 4 introduces a late twentieth-century queer space partly articulated in relation to the Renaissance queer space. It critiques the theoretical foundations of late twentieth-century queer theory, introducing transgender responses to „queering‟ readings of transgender bodies, as well as queer theorists‟ own attempts to narrativise themselves as points of incoherence in Butler‟s model and introduces a corporealising material feminist perspective of gender subjectivity as a more accommodating alternative. Chapter 5 reconsiders queer readings of transgender characters in Angela Carter‟s The Passion of New Eve. It concludes that the novel has been evaluated from a queer perspective and that it offers a more interesting comment on sex and gender if read from a material feminist point of view. Chapter 6 discusses John Cameron Mitchell‟s Hedwig and the Angry Inch as one transgender narrative that has been critiqued by transgender academia and Gore Vidal‟s Myra Breckinridge as a transgender narrative that has been approved. It analyses and critiques the reasons for the texts‟ reception and formulates a new poetics of corporeal gender based on the idea of nomadic gender subjectivity developed in the works of the Australian school of material feminists. The thesis finally exchanges a queer reading of transgender characters for a nomadic corporeal reading that better accommodates the historical discourses surrounding the Renaissance material, the literary content of the contemporary fiction, and the idea of transgender identity as it is considered in transgender studies.

Globalization and the advancement of technology have made the world smaller. Boundaries that define nations and nationalities have blurred and the resulting sense of displacement has undermined assumptions of identity and conversely made the search for identity more urgent. This thesis investigates the dialogue between the contemporary arts and architecture through the lens of the Filipino culture as a way to recapture and bring to the surface the contemporary identity of Filipinos and the Philippines. It proposes an understanding of history, geography and culture as a complex floating archipelago out of which our identity as individuals and nations emerge. It suggests that the events of history and the characteristics of geography are the grounds out of which art, myths and legends continue to be formed and sustain their relevance. Today, these compelling narratives emerge through the works of contemporary artists. They help us view and understand our flaws, struggles, triumphs, and future as a society in a way that speaks of our culture and time. Architecture, as a container and stage for culture must be sensitive to this artistic contemporaneity if it is to be indexical to our time. The Philippines, as a culture of hybrid and regional identities, has long struggled to make sense of the Contemporary in a largely Traditional society. The thesis proposes a new Centre for Contemporary Arts in Manila to bring the diverse artistic activities of the country into focus. It intervenes at interface between the Traditional and the Contemporary, which bridges the gap between the two, thus heralding a Cultural Renaissance and help generate a sense of contemporary nationalism.

This thesis adds to the discussion surrounding how Apple Inc. has been able to to garner and maintain such a loyal brand following. With the help of background from theory on branding, it examines the uses of Michel Foucault’s heterotopia and religious allegory within Apple’s branding strategies. With the help of past discussions surrounding these topics, the presence of these uses in present day Apple branding is exemplified in the description and analysis of Apple’s 2014 “Your Verse Anthem” and the Apple Store as a branded space. Through this analysis, this thesis also makes an original argument for a consistent Apple heterotopia that is inherently religious. This heterotopia mirrors the story of Adam and Eve as, within its story, Apple promises that if their consumers will become loyal to the Apple brand by taking a bit out of Apple’s “forbidden fruit,” signified in their logo, Apple will help them see the truth of the Tree of Knowledge, which will help them understand that they need not conform but can instead use Apple products to realize their aspirations and create a life that represents their own version of utopia. This characteristically Apple religious heterotopia and the tactics used by Apple as a whole come together to draw the connection between Apple and the strategies used by cult leaders. This connection ultimately helps explain the loyalty and fever behind Apple’s consumer following.

Thesis (MA (English))--University of Stellenbosch, 2010. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The concept of the city has evolved over time with generations of city dwellers. The rapid advance of technology has promoted globalisation, which has brought about increased familiarity with diverse cultures, but has also exposed issues of marginalisation among communities in cities. In order to approach a more comprehensive understanding of the complexity of the “open” postmodern view of the city it is essential to consider the relevant literature that grapples with issues of human identity and appropriation in the city. This dissertation examines narrative perspectives in the literary works of four postmodern writers: Jonathan Safran Foer, Neil Gaiman, China Miéville, and Lauren Beukes. References to underlying philosophical viewpoints, various perceptions, both “real” and fictional, were incorporated in the discussion. Close attention is paid to the correlation between the novel and the city, and to what extent the city itself can be viewed as a narrative – since, within a postmodern approach, fictional narratives may form discourses that represent, and in a fashion constitute, the city, while subjects at the same time form themselves in terms of their environment. Fiction becomes an invaluable tool for exploring the cityscape and commenting on contemporary issues. In conclusion, the urbanised human subject may be said to play a vital role in establishing the concept of the city, both in “real” culture and in fictional narrative. The representation of the contemporary South African urban milieu in the discussed literature serves to confirm the relevance of local as well as global influences. To justify multiple perspectives on the city consequently means to grant each individual viewpoint validity. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die konsep van die stad het deur die jare ontwikkel saam met geslagte van stadsbewoners. Die vinnige vooruitgang van tegnologie het globalisasie bevorder, wat op sy beurt weer bewustheid van diverse kulture bevorder het, maar ook kwessies blootgelê het rondom marginalisasie in stadsgemeenskappe. Ten einde ‘n meer omvattende begrip van die kompleksiteit van die “oop” postmoderne perspektief op die stad daar te stel, is dit belangrik om te kyk na die relevante literatuur wat bemoeienis maak met kwessies van menslike identiteit en eienaarskap in die stad. Hierdie dissertasie het gekyk na vertellerperspektiewe in die literêre werke van vier postmoderne skrywers: Jonathan Safran Foer, Neil Gaiman, China Miéville, en Lauren Beukes. Met verwysing na onderliggende filosofiese gesigspunte is verskeie persepsies, gegrond op die werklikheid sowel as fiktief, in die bespreking ingesluit. Daar is aandag gegee aan die verband tussen die roman en die stad, en in watter mate die stad self as ‘n teks beskou kan word, aangesien die teks volgens ‘n postmoderne aanslag die stad kan “representeer” en “laat ontstaan”, terwyl menslike subjekte hulself terselfdertyd vorm in terme van hul omgewing. Fiksie word dus ‘n waardevolle werktuig vir waarneming van en kommentaar lewer op komtemporêre sake. Ten slotte kan gesê word dat die verstedelikte menslike subjek ‘n belangrike rol speel in die bevestiging van die stad as konsep, beide in reële kultuur en in fiktiewe vertelling. Die verteenwoordiging van die kontemporêre Suid-Afrikaanse stedelike milieu in die bespreekte tekste bevestig die relevansie van lokale sowel as internasionale invloede. Om veelvuldige perspektiewe op die stad gelyk te beregtig beteken gevolglik dat elke individuele gesigspunt geldig is.

Nessa pesquisa OS CHIFRES ENTRE A CRUZ E A ESPADA: um estudo das festas de touros (XV-XVI) na Espanha, buscamos identificar como se deu essa emergência de um discurso de controle régio e clerical sob as chamadas festas de touros nos séculos XV e XVI – sendo aquilo que chamamos de “os chifres entre a cruz e a espada” justamente essa leitura das festas taurinas que legitimaram e deram vasão a essa construção das festas mais austeras e em conformidade com as doutrinas e dogmas cristãos, naquilo que denominamos de discurso de ordenança festiva. Para isso, analisamos uma gama de documentos, entre uma Crônica (Crónica del Condestable de Castilla Don Lucas de Iranzo), um Tratado (Tratado do Jogo), Bula (Salute Gregis Dominici) e o prólogo de um Cancioneiro (Cancionero de Juan Alfonso de Baena) na tentativa de construir e identificar nessa tipologia diversa de documentos, as várias maneiras utilizadas para compor o discurso de ordenança festiva. Observáveis em três frentes de análise – o discurso clerical, o discurso clerical percebido e praticado ou não pela nobreza e o discurso espacial/heterotopológico (sendo esse último, de suma importância, e tendo sido analisado partindo do conceito foucaultiano de heterotopia e as várias possibilidades que ele pode representar na análise dos mais diversos espaços). Também, perseguimos ao longo da pesquisa um tema que apesar de já há muito debatido mostrou que ainda encontra terreno fértil para novos debates historiográficos, as festas em si – analisadas partindo da proposta da festa como questão e como discurso. / In this research HORNS BETWEEN THE CROSS AND THE SWORD : a study of the bulls parties (XV- XVI) in Spain, we seek to identify how was this emergence of a regal control speech and clerical specifically under the so-called bulls parties in the XV and XVI - being what we call " the horns between a rock and a hard place " just this reading of bullfighting festivals that legitimized and gave arterial runoff to that construction of the austere celebrations and they were in accordance with the Christian doctrines and dogmas , what We call the ordinance festive speech and gave way to this construction of more austere celebrations that were in accordance with the Christian doctrines and dogmas, in what we call the festive ordinance speech. In order to do so, we analyzed a range of documents, from a chronicle (Crónica del Condestable de Castilla Don Lucas Iranzo), a treaty (Tratado del Juego), a bula (Salute Gregis Dominici) and the prologue of a songbook (Cancionero de Juan Alfonso de Baena) in an attempt to identify and construct in this different typology the various ways used to compose the festive ordinance speech. Observable in three fronts of analysis - the clerical speech, the clerical speech perceived and practiced (or not) by the nobility and the space/heterotopological speech (the latter, of paramount importance, has been analyzed with Foucault's concept of heterotopia and the various possibilities that it can represent in the analysis of the most diverse spaces as a starting point). We also seek throughout the research a theme that, although it has been discussed many times before, still shows that there is fertile ground for new historiographical debates: the parties themselves – analyzed from the premises of parties as problem and as speech.

I följande arbete undersöks förståelsen av kulturarv i stadsförnyelse. Syftet med uppsatsen var att undersöka hur lokala och globala uppfattningar av kulturarv styr och samspelar med utvecklingen av städer samt bygga upp en förståelse för hur kulturmiljöer och narrativ tolkas och tillämpas när stadens förnyas. Detta gjordes genom en fallstudie av Habana Vieja, den historiska stadskärnan i Havanna. Avgränsningen till Habana Vieja som fall grundade sig i dess position som världsarvsstad med ett kolonialt förflutet och dess pågående stadsutveckling, där UNESCO agerar som global aktör.Arbetets teoretiska ramverk grundades i ett socialkonstruktivistiskt perspektiv. Synen på kunskap, berättelser och platser förklaras som socialt konstruerade, vilket gjorde att kulturarven kunde analyseras och förstås utifrån dess specifika kontext. Tolkningar av Habana Viejas kulturarv analyserades genom både tid, plats och narrativ för att en förståelse för dess sammanhang skulle utrönas. Kvalitativa metoder valdes för att jag skulle kunna tolka och analysera datainsamlingen i den sociala verklighet som den befann sig i. Fältarbetet i Habana Vieja gav en direkt insyn i hur kulturarven samspelar med stadsutvecklingen medan analysen av myndighetsdokument presenterade den bild som aktörerna ville ge utåt. Utifrån de premisserna analyserades fallet Habana Vieja utifrån övergripande och platsspecifika nivåer för att kunna både bredda och fördjupa förståelsen för kulturarvets roll i stadsförnyelsen. Analysen påvisade att kulturarven i Habana Vieja integreras i stadsförnyelsen. Kulturarven förklaras som historiska men de bedöms efter sin relation till nutiden. Kulturarvens primära användningsområde är sammanlänkat med synen på kulturarv som resurser för att legitimera framtida stadsutveckling, snarare än bärare av ett arv. UNESCOs globala beskyddande av kulturarv verkar vidare påverka sociala, ekonomiska och planeringsrelaterade aspekter i Habana Vieja.